This Is Not A Power Play by Janna Grace

My white upper middle-class male professor told me no one is interested in reading poetry about male/female power dynamics.

He shook his head over my pastlike a sad sheepdogand said I should really try to stick to nature and “moments of quiet.”

I smiled, marked a momentand left.

Another time, with a beer, I said I wanted a roomof my own,that maybe that would help me get it alloutand he straightened, slid his glasses to his eyes so he could focus,capture,this pub room teaching moment.Didn’t I know that so many men have been poor and written hundreds of masterpieces

by the time they were my age?No one at the table said a word when he listed severallong dead white men.

Maybe it’s because his moments of quiet are filled with ripened plums and speckled birds, soft seascapes and giant billowing clouds that might marinate in an afternoon’s reflection on being a poor father figure or son…

Maybe it’s because his moments aren’t daring not to breathe because a man might hear him on the other side of a bathroom door, or maybe it’s because his aren’t in the pause after another he finishes up and says, “if you didn’t want it why did you wear a dress?” Or, maybe his have never popped with the small bubbles of spittle that slide down his chin when another he releases hold of his throat.

No, you’re right. If I want to be read and maybe win a big man’s awardmaybe I should just stick to nature and those sweet, sweet momentsI hear about silence.

A moment I am throwing away is that upper middle-class white men are not interestedin male/female power plays. That’s trite manand I’ll take out my momentswith the trash if I want to.

Because I know that every poem you make us read from your bespectacled brethrenand of your own perfect momentstell us the gray that gently tinges your hair is from time, not trauma.